The state with the lowest average teacher salary in the US is Mississippi, at around $48,000 a year. However, $48,000 in Mississippi may look very different from $48,000 in New York.
To compare teacher salaries across states, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) created the Comparable Wage Index, which normalizes teacher pay by cost of living and cost of labor in each state. With NCES data on state-by-state average salaries for public K-12 teachers, as well as the comparable wage index, clear patterns about the states where being a public school teacher is more financially rewarding emerge.
Overall, New York and Massachusetts K-12 teachers are compensated more, relative to other earners and cost of living, than teachers in the rest of the country. Using this analysis, public teacher pay is the lowest in Florida and Arizona.
